Search form

'Binders Full of Women'

The candidates looked like characters from Mad Men. Black suits, white shirts, and Opposite Day rep ties—Romney in blue, Obama in Republican Red. The ladies channeled the same era, but showed some backbone. They wore fuschia. A “feminine” color with bite. The message: the men might be all mixed up, with Obama proclaiming his love for the Second Amendment and professing enthusiasm about coal and Big Oil, and Romney up in arms about the Migratory Bird Act, so you couldn’t tell who was the Democrat and who was the Republican at first. But the ladies, dressed in hot pink, were bringing it.

In retrospect, that color choice foreshadowed an important issue: the role women and the rights of women and the position of women would play in this debate and, perhaps, in the 2012 presidential race.

Typically, challengers get to look like Big Idea Guys in debates—they talk about what they would do and the philosophy underlying their proposed plan—while incumbents look like beleaguered, petty town supervisors defending their actions and explaining why the sanitation department didn’t plow Aunt Gert’s street. That's what happened in round one of the debates. But this time, Obama took back the reigns of the race in two rhetorical moments. First, he seized phallic privilege and “p

Sexual difference was front and center at the debate

residential-ness” with his litany of “I said I would…and I did.” Get Osama bin Laden. Lower taxes for the middle class. End the war in Iraq.

But even more, he won a rhetorical and real battle when he dared to say words that Romney did not. When a young woman in the town hall audience asked the candidates to address gendered pay inequity—women still earn 72 cents on the dollar on average in our country, she reminded us—Romney responded, unfortunately for him and his party, with laughable generalities and a truly hilarious image. He said the best solution was to do what he had done as governor of Massachusetts—“find some women who are qualified” to serve in his cabinet from among “binders full of women.” When those women had child care issues, he explained, he simply offered them flexible hours so they could go home early.

It’s the thought that counts and the thought does not seem to sit well with many women. A casting director and mother of two flipped back the flippancy of the remark: “Where are there binders full of women? I need them for work.” A psychoanalyst who had observed Obama’s “calm aggression” and tamped down anger said, “Romney seemed disingenuous when he said that. What did it even mean?” Another woman, a reporter, told me of Romney’s binder comment, “It was like he was trying to court me or pick me up. What he said about women sounded like half truths with a sleazy agenda.” And a female lawyer who described the comments as “inauthentic and antiquated” said, “I don’t trust a vague story about something he did personally. Do you know how quickly a concession like flex time gets you taken off the partner track at a law firm?”

Whatever you think of Obama and whether you are a Democrat or a Republican, he scored a slam dunk here by being specific, clear and committal in his language. He linked women’s success in the workplace to larger issues—health care and child care. He dared speak the taboo word, “contraception” and also peppered his talk with words like “cervical cancer screening,” “mammogram,” and “child care.” Then, in a moment of rhetorical mastery, he suggested that “these are not just women’s issues. They are family issues and economic issues.”

By using specific words—even taboo ones—that signify “female” and that matter to women, Obama was able to position himself as informed and truly democratic. The Binder Blunder, on the other hand, is Romney’s to undo. Or wear, as a fuschia badge of shame, into the next debtate.

People are quick to blame discrimination, but are we failing to recognize there are different priorities with women? I don't think anyone can and should ensure that pay is equal because perhaps performance isn't equal. The story that Romney related about a woman needing more flexibility is the key. As a woman, I don't want more pay... I need more flexibility. I made equal, if not more, than most men in my field until age 33 when I had a child and at that point I consciously chose to take a less active role in exchange for flexibility. My job title remains the same and if you were to analyze the data I guess you could say that the pay gap is now widening between myself and my male colleagues. However, I chose not to travel as much and not to present at as many conferences. Previous to having a child, I had no issues working an 80 hour week and now it just isn't possible, so in some ways, ensuring equal pay just by the numbers is unfair without looking and the underlying reasons.

Does anyone else think it is ironic that Romney was essentially saying he practiced affirmative action by looking through his special binders when his party is so vocally against affirmative action for minorities?

Didn't Romney pick the advisors who presented him with all men candidates in the first place? Doesn't this suggest something about the culture of boys club around him and undermine the point of his story? It seems he was asking for credit for merely noticing the bad optics of the reality of his inner circle. Women never mattered and weren't a natural part of the process, just appearing in binders for display purposes.

I think you all, and even Wednesday, are taking what Romney said and turning it into an insensitive attack on women in the workplace. Could Romney have answered the question better...? Of course, but the gist of the answer was the point.

Romney took over as CEO and noticed that there weren't any women on the board. He asked why there weren't any and attempted to remedy the problem. It wasn't "affirmative action" as some other commenter noted, but a true character moment to make sure that the right men AND WOMEN were represented on the board. I'm sure he just didn't pick some random hottie to sit and be a token female, but chose a truly qualified woman from the resumes in the binders, as any good businessman would. You are making generalizations about his character and motivations that are just not true.

Romney could have done a much better job of relating to the young lady that asked the question and gotten more specific, but lets look at a real fact: women who work in the Executive Branch make 18% less money than their male counterparts. If the President was truly worried about equal pay for women, I think that would not be the case.

Pander, pander, pander, make the other guy a monster, spread the meme. That is what this supposed War on Women is. Obama is hemmoraging women voters according to the polls. Gotta stop the bleeding somehow...

We should just put into legislation that fathers are REQUIRED to be first in the call list if their child is sick. that the father is required to take work off early or take off days on end to care for a sick child. Let the women work without the burden of children and pay would become equal.

Men claim they make more money because they work harder. Maybe we should force the men into the unpaid work it takes to run a family. then we'll see who's complaining. I don't see man men taking this kind of sacrifice in stride unfortunately.